11 College Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

11 College Square East, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a modest two-storey, two-bay, mid-terrace house built around 1883, forming part of College Square — a formally planned late-Victorian square in the model village of Bessbrook. The architect is unknown, though the work may be attributed to John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1881. The listing covers the house itself together with its gate, railings, and yard walling.

Architectural Description

The house is of L-plan form, facing southwest, with a two-storey rear return added around 2006. The walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a high-quality granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate and used in buildings as far afield as Manchester Town Hall and the steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool), with stepped red brick dressings to the jambs, stone cills, and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings. The pitched roof is finished in fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The eaves are flush, with separate red and buff brick eaves courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. A rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest carries two terracotta clay pots. Rainwater goods to the front elevation are generally metal, with uPVC half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes at the rear.

Principal (Southwest) Elevation

The front elevation is nearly symmetrical and sits flush with the rest of the terrace. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with a matching foot gate hung on slim posts to the southeast. A paved path leads from the gate to a panelled painted timber door at the southeast end of the façade; the door has two glazed panels to its upper half and a square-headed fanlight above. There is a window to the northwest side at ground floor level. The fenestration follows a regular pattern, with two windows at first floor level aligned with the main entrance door and ground floor window. Windows are generally uPVC sliding sash.

Northwest Elevation

To the northwest, the building is attached to No. 12 College Square East.

Northeast (Rear) Elevation

Access to the rear northeast-facing elevation is limited. Where visible, it consists of a two-storey pitched-roof rear return projecting into an L-shaped rear yard. The rear yard is covered on the northwest side of the rear return by a monopitched corrugated Perspex roof, and is reduced to a single bay in width at its northwest extent. There is a single top-opening casement window to the first floor of the rear elevation. The rear return has a single top-opening casement window at first floor level facing northwest, and a wider top-opening casement window also visible at first floor level facing northeast. A random-coursed rock-faced yard boundary wall has a painted planked timber door leading from the rear access route into the rear yard. The rear façade and return are generally finished in rough-cast cement render, with timber casement windows, concrete cills, and uPVC rainwater goods. A flat-roofed outbuilding occupies the northern corner of the yard.

Southeast Elevation

To the southeast, the building is attached to No. 10 College Square East.

Setting and Group Value

No. 11 forms part of College Square East, one of three terraces — east, north, and west — arranged around a central bowling green, playground, and lawn to form a planned square of 53 mill workers' dwellings in total. Each house is set back from the perimeter road and footpath behind a modest front yard typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. The eastern terrace steps in groups of six dwellings to follow the subtle relief of the site. The western terrace is composed of paired dwellings in a similar style. The northern terrace is the shortest at only twelve houses wide, but is distinctly larger, being two-and-a-half storeys. Rear yards are enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling, each with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route. Rear façades are generally much altered; front façades are nearly uniform along the eastern terrace. Bessbrook Town Hall — the former Institute building — is located to the southeast.

The central area of the square is divided into three sections, each laid to lawn. To the northwest is a bowling pavilion and green (added in 1911) enclosed by painted hooped metal railings, with established trees at its northwest boundary. A lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings lies to the southeast. In the centre is an open children's playground containing three granite monuments. One records: "Erected A.D. 1911 in respectful memory of George Wright, Head Mason; John McClelland, Head Millwright; Michael Boyle, Flax Buyer, who each faithfully served the Bessbrook firm for nearly 50 years. Also Robert Ross, Mill Manager; Austin Kennedy, Rougher." A second records: "The garden in memory of James N. Richardson is arranged by his wife as a playground for the children of Bessbrook whom he loved, November 1927," with an inscription on the opposite side noting that this was the last stone cut from Bessbrook Quarry. A third monument, recently relocated from the grounds of Bessbrook Mill, details the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 through to the Bessbrook Spinning Company Limited in 1878.

Historical Background

The origins of industry at Bessbrook date to 1761, when John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green at a site then known simply as "The Green." The site was renamed Bessbrook in honour of Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). By the 1830s, as recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map, few buildings had been erected; the only significant structures were Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village of Bessbrook as it is known today was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased one of the derelict mills on the site and began building housing for his factory workers. Richardson later explained that he "had a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and deliberately chose a country district where flax was cultivated. His layout of the village was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for planning Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's approach combined pragmatic and altruistic aims: by providing good living conditions he hoped to secure good relations between employer and employee, and actively brought the poor and unemployed from the surrounding countryside to live and work at Bessbrook. The village became known for the absence of the "Three P's" — no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for police. In exchange, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and had milk, tea, and cocoa distributed to his workers. The population voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and to this day no public house exists in Bessbrook. Police were not stationed in the village until the turn of the 20th century.

Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1863 after buying out his brother's shares. The local linen industry boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65), when access to American cotton was cut off. Richardson greatly enlarged his factory and workforce in response. After Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, Richardson became both the principal employer and the main landowner at Bessbrook. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate the influx of workers; the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 in 1861 to 2,215 in 1871, and the number of houses from 73 to 296.

College Square was laid out around 1883 as Richardson's business expanded further. The mid-1880s were described in the Bessbrook Conservation Area Guide as "a period of intense building activity in the village" during which "the earlier ideals of the plan were re-established." The factory was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The square took its name from the Primary School on its west side, erected in 1849. The houses were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company, using Newry Granodiorite from the quarry on the former Charlemont Estate. The houses were first recorded in the Annual Revisions in 1883.

Each house at Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required under their lease to keep pigs and fowl in a pig-sty and fowl-run in the garden rather than in the family quarters or yard, and were obliged to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

History of No. 11

No. 11 College Square East was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr Daniel King and valued at £5 and 10 shillings, at which it remained until the 1950s. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades. The 1911 Census of Ireland recorded the house as occupied by Robert Craig, a weaver at the local factory, and described it as a second-class dwelling of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the building was occupied by a Ms Minnie Craig-Porter. During the Second World War, mill workers at Bessbrook were tasked with producing cloth for military uniforms.

The Bessbrook Spinning Company began selling its housing in Bessbrook during the 1960s, as a post-war downturn in the textile market foreshadowed the closure of the mill in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army. The majority of the houses along College Square were purchased by a Mr George Preston around 1969, including No. 11. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the house was occupied by a Ms Jane E. Craig and had been revalued at £8.

No. 11 College Square East was listed in 1981 and was included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area when it was designated in 1983 in recognition of Bessbrook's historical significance as a planned mill village. A two-storey modern rear return was added to the property around 2006. The building retains its external character despite the replacement of the original roof slates, the substitution of some windows and rainwater goods with uPVC, and the addition of the rear extension.

Significance

Bessbrook is internationally significant as one of the earliest planned mill villages in these islands, begun in the 1840s and contemporary with, or predating, the English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895) — settlements which directly influenced town and country planning all over the world. College Square is a rare example of a formally designed and planned Victorian square in the province. No. 11 College Square East contributes to this group both architecturally and historically, representing the social and industrial development of Bessbrook in the late 19th century and the Quaker philanthropic ideals that shaped it.